<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>theology by Riemann_integrable</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28133226">theology</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riemann_integrable/pseuds/Riemann_integrable'>Riemann_integrable</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Serial Experiments Lain</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Minor Violence, Multiple Personalities, Reality Bending, Religious Imagery &amp; Symbolism, Surreal, Unconventional Format, Unreliable Narrator, non-explicit gore, there's a bit of lain/alice plus the canon ships but only trace amounts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 14:41:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,452</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28133226</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riemann_integrable/pseuds/Riemann_integrable</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When one half of a person thinks it can live without the other half.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yuletide 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>theology</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/gifts"></a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>[IMPORTANT: TO BE READ TWICE, WITH THE CREATOR'S STYLE HIDDEN THE SECOND TIME]</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“This would look good on you” concludes Juri after a careful examination of a top on the rack in front of her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Huh?” you jolt back.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A few isles away, Alice is trying to convince Reika to get matching skirts, and Reika doesn’t agree. They’re both pretending to argue about it while holding back a laugh.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Don’t you like pink?” The hanger is all but thrust into your hands. “It’s a cute colour. If you’re that shy, you should go for cute. All the black and white just looks gloomy.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s fine,” you say as you smooth the top over your black jumper, as a provisory idea of how it would suit.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You have nothing against pink. The fact you don’t usually wear it is aleatory, not stemming from an antipathy towards it. Juri smiles at you taking the advice. She seems dedicated to dressing you up and it makes her happy to be respected as an authority on the matter. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“We’ll get a lipstick for it.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The makeup shelf contains at least forty different tones, ranging from pink through red to deep lilac. They resemble variations of flushed skin — or an unrealistically bright and ideal kind of blush. Identical caps lined up that differ only in the small sample of colour served to illustrate on top. Only two are missing, the ones Juri is holding in order to compare them with the pink shirt; you lift it to help.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I think I’ve got it…!” Before you can say anything else, she puts back one of the lipsticks and uncaps the other, holding your chin.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You attempt to instinctively retreat in the protection of your turtleneck and your hat. But it makes you think there might actually be a reason you dress like this, even though you don’t do it on purpose, and revamping your style could have a positive effect on connecting </span>
  <span class="font-white"><b>(To connect is the only thing you really want.)</b></span>
  <span> with your friends.</span>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>What’s truly terrifying about us is when we make autonomous decisions. It’s way more difficult to explain why one </span>
  <em>
    <span>does</span>
  </em>
  <span> something than why they </span>
  <em>
    <span>don’t do</span>
  </em>
  <span> something else. It’s an important gift you’re squandering there, that of free will. You’re not even </span>
  <em>
    <span>supposed to</span>
  </em>
  <span> have it. Your choices in wearing turtlenecks or anything of the sort isn’t, per se, the reason your normal life could end, just a consequence of a hyperawareness that will very evidently ruin everything. It’s impossible to live as omniscient.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>As in, if you are omniscient, you have to stop </span>
  <em>
    <span>living</span>
  </em>
  <span> in the traditional sense of the word.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Anyone up for Cyberia tonight?” asks Juri an hour or two later, when the four of you approach the mall’s exit, dolled up with numerous new clothes and accessories.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“My mom is keeping a check on me, I’m gonna have to opt out.” Reika groans.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What? Bummer!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I skipped homework too many times. Math teacher told them in the last conference.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You notice Alice idly playing with her one of her new earrings and looking away.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Are you coming, Lain?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You snap out of it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Uh, I… Don’t know. Don’t think so.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Problems with your parents too, huh?” Reika squints.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No, no, they always let me go,” you wave your hands around in an apologetic gesture, “I just have some work to do on my Navi.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You wait for the argument to start, but then everyone’s focus shifts on the young boy completely still in that odd pose — in the middle of the sidewalk nonetheless, with passerbys’ gazes glued to him. If it were only him it would be easy to dismiss, but then two children raise their hands wordlessly at the sky. For about the fifth time, you repeat to yourself that you don’t understand the type of games they play, you’re not a preteen anymore after all. You begin not to feel so sure they’re even playing. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You lift your gaze, too, and you are by now fully prepared to see God. Perhaps you do.</span>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>And you look so confused with the pink top and the lipstick of the same colour and the rest of accessories meshed together that don’t fit at all. Not just your expression and your sense of style — your entire state of mind is confused. Your entire identity.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>Why would you know who you are when you don’t even know who you are not? You might be getting an idea. The dazzling sunlight might just illuminate you in more ways than one.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sometimes one may be tormented by the idea of not being a real person. Of being an artificial replacement of sorts. You don’t think this is likely, however, you do think it’s possible. Alice stares at you as you space out while the two of you walk home together; it’s not that it makes her uneasy, she’s used to your mannerisms, she just wonders what’s wrong. The expression on her face radiates an innocuous need to help.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This, together with your thought process, is one task too many to carry out at the same time so you stop in your tracks. She slows her steps to match you. The next thing you know is your ribbon being adjusted, and otherwise you probably wouldn’t have noticed it was skewed in the first place.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re thinking about something today,” Alice observes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>Thinking is a nebulous word — if processing information in itself means thinking, then you definitely are. Then again, saying so would be inaccurate. Counterpoint: computers. They process information, and yet nobody would say they </span>
  <em>
    <span>think</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Nobody in their right mind anyway, that ‘right mind’ being a comprehensive view of the </span>
  <em>
    <span>real</span>
  </em>
  <span> world as we know it. The information fed to you is being very neatly sorted and curated though, you deserve some credit for that. A glass of refreshing cola maybe. There you go, you can claim your reward as soon as this girl stops interrogating you about your dilemmas and you manage to arrive home.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  
  <span>“Lain,” she calls out again, “you can tell me about it if you want.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Your grip tightens around the handle of your school bag. In the next few seconds you feel an odd hatred towards the background noises that fill the silence you leave, towards the faint cicadas, the voices from a conversation in the next street, a dog’s barks, the buzzing and buzzing and buzzing. The anxiety of being dismissed lingers instinctively even if you know the person before you might be the only one who cares. You scramble for words. In the end you should simply say what’s bothering you without glazing it with a phrasing that would make it sound sensible.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Alice, do you sometimes think—” You have to breathe in. You get an attentive look. “Do you sometimes think you might not be real? Or that everyone else… </span>
  <em>
    <span>exists</span>
  </em>
  <span> more than you do?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>Well, that’s one </span>
  <em>
    <span>clumsy</span>
  </em>
  <span> way to express any internal dispute.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I, um,... What reminded you of that?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Probably…” You think up an excuse. “Chisa, I think.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“She didn’t have many friends, did she?” Alice says this in such an innocuous tone it doesn’t even sound rude. Both of you slowly resume the stroll.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“She seemed lonely. </span>
  <span class="font-white"><b>(You are, of course, not talking about yourself. Or are you?)</b></span>
  <span> She mentioned that sort of thing, not being real.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Huh? I didn’t know you spoke to her about topics like these.” She smiles. “Maybe she did have a friend after all.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Ah, we only walked home together once. Kind of like this.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>When she explained how she was going to kill herself, yes. You might tell yourself she just ‘strongly insinuated it’ but there aren’t that many interpretations for </span>
  <em>
    <span>getting rid of one’s physical body</span>
  </em>
  <span> for regular humans. Aren’t you trying to convince yourself you are one — a human? You nodded along to Chisa Yomoda’s tranquil insanity because, to you, the separation between the real and the virtual self isn’t a big deal. Don’t think about it though, it will just make you feel guilty.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Alice is silent, as though she’s trying to come up with the right thing to say, walking on eggshells because of how difficult to figure out your personality can be at times. The power pole you pass has a generator on it, its buzz is more blaring and lower in tone.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I do think you exist,” she says, then. “But sometimes you need to hear it from somebody else, right?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She looks at you and specifies; “From someone </span>
  <em>
    <span>real</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You think about forums and helpful messages and disembodied mouths coiling into sympathetic smiles. Your body retracts in a ripple of shame. Is it wrong to feel so comfortable in the Wired? Are you doing Alice a disservice? </span>
  <span class="font-white"><b>Doesn’t she deserve it, if you are? She can’t so much as fully enjoy the Wired from her outdated children’s Navi, so she doesn’t understand. Are you so desperate for the banal physicality of her hands in yours that you’ll listen to her dismiss your interests like that?</b></span>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>“The Wired is more real than this, that’s my point,” I can’t help but interject.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She blinks, trying to decipher you. </span>
  <span class="font-white"><b>I throw her a smirk.</b></span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“This is a… difficult topic.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I see… I’m sorry.” You’re not sure what you’re apologizing for, but you probably did something wrong.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Twenty seconds more spent without dialogue. Buzzing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Anyway, I think it’d be weird to go to Cyberia too. After what happened last time…” Alice breathes out and stretches her arms, trying to shake the stress off and divert the topic. “Want to come over on Friday though? You could show me something on the Wired!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” you hesitate but then smile just a little, “thank you, Alice.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Didn’t I see you in Shibuya today?” asks Mika.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You take a portion of rice in silence. Mom and dad carry on, too, even though you perhaps wanted them to say something. It’s not like they should. Parents are supposed to help their children when they don’t know the answer, and you really don’t; you can’t say for sure Mika didn’t see you. There’s no way to exclude it. It is, though, more likely that she saw someone resembling you or was otherwise mistaken, so there’s no need to follow up. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s good to lead by example and not talk when there’s nothing to say. Family meals are heartfelt moments. They ought to be enjoyed without unnecessary ruckus, with delicious food, good sentiment and respect. The rice is particularly savory today, and you make sure to distribute nori evenly on every bite — you’re sure mom put a lot of effort into cooking it. That’s because she loves you, and dad, and Mika.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Nevermind,” the latter adds shortly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>Maybe she’s realized it wasn’t you after all. </span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You place the food in your mouth in small doses and revel in the blissful normality of your life. After you add some sauce to your bowl, you offer it to Mika too. Just the fact that she noticed makes you happy in some way. She shakes her head ever so slightly to refuse.</span>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>She’s only paying attention to you because she thinks you’re freakish and creepy, specifically that there’s even more things wrong with you lately than usual. She’s not even incorrect, perhaps. But she really shouldn’t have pried.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I was wondering if…” you start.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mom and dad keep eating, don’t even flinch. Mika — she looks like she wants to say something very badly but doesn’t. You were going to ask them too, if you’re real, but there’s a knot of anxiety in your throat and suddenly you’re not sure how you’re even going to continue your meal.</span>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>“If you fulfilled the prophecy yet?” I turn to your sister. Our sister?</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>Her eyes go wide. I know she’s gone, her mind and its physical projection are violently split from each other, and I love watching it happen behind the opaque windows of her retinas.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>Family meals are heartfelt moments. This silence is very heartfelt indeed. But it is also becoming incredibly uneventful and it makes my nerves weary. I reach out for the water pitcher and knock it over.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>The water spreads across the table among the various bowls and plates in a single, quick, smooth wave.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>You watch it pour off a side with a sharp splash. Nearly three quarters of the tablecloth are soaked, possibly dad’s clothes too as he was sat on the side it landed. Mom closes her eyes and lifts her chopsticks to her mouth with the next bit of food. All you can gauge is a tiny perturbation in dad — it could be merely physiological, in reaction to the wetness. </span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>I grab the rice pot and make sure to empty it in the geometric middle of this rectangle the four of you form. The grains are everywhere; in the glasses, the sauce, on the soggy tablecloth, like a charming snowfall indoors.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>At least you know Mika’s stillness is sincere because her mind is elsewhere.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Only God can help you. You’ve heard something like this said before, but it has always been very offhand when coming from religious people. The most natural phrase in the world. It’s not as easy for you to comprehend; you’re not sure what God even is. Sometimes you ask yourself, these are questions that come up at fourteen.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Something downstairs was making your head spin so badly you decide you need to find God — you may not know </span>
  <em>
    <span>what</span>
  </em>
  <span> he is, but you know </span>
  <em>
    <span>where</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Chisa told you after all. You aren’t scolded when you sprint up two steps at a time. Were you expecting to be? It feels like there’s a kilometer of level difference between the two floors of the house. Your room is the end of an uphill marathon.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You only notice how violently you’ve opened the door when it slams loudly against a crate full of circuit components you put behind it previously.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hello Navi,” you force the phrase to come out even enough for the vocal recognition.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The usual </span>
  <em>
    <span>Hello Lain</span>
  </em>
  <span> barely plays out before you interrupt with your next command, throwing yourself down onto the chair.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Show me God.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The circuitry hums as it fully awakens, long lines of coded text roll on the screen in light blue on a black background. When the processing is complete, you scan the monitor as though you’re part of the machine yourself. The first search results don’t tell you anything you don’t already know. You groan in frustration.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>On the verge of giving up, you run into a reply from a familiar username.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Aren’t we all a bit God? Perhaps you are, too.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“This isn’t helping.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>You don’t need help.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Navi’s buzzing grows more prominent as if that’s any response at all. You realize you need to </span>
  <em>
    <span>connect</span>
  </em>
  <span>, to go deeper, to be in sync. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That was awkward and rude to your parents; you should go back down to apologize. It’s just that you suddenly got overwhelmed. They might get angry, but at least you will have given them an explanation, and after the ire dissipates they will understand, because that’s what parents do. The stairs seem fewer in this direction.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Your sister is just walking by when you reach the bottom and you try to study her face to figure out if she’s as tormented as she seemed ten minutes ago. You’re worried; siblings care about each other at the end of the day. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You encounter a pair of perfectly tranquil eyes. She seems to be inspecting you as well.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What’s the matter?” You ask instinctively, she should be saying the same thing. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Nothing.” Mika carries on.</span>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>An insightful encounter between two empty husks.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You focus on the doorway for just about a minute, drawn to it by some sense of unease. The air flickers and contorts in one spot, making you wonder if you’re at the point of hallucinating out of hunger. Or because you’re going crazy and everyone can see it, except you. Mika is — indirectly — saying so. Your friends on the Wired are saying so. The glimmering silver silhouette of a woman that stands a few meters from you is saying so. </span>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>I can’t believe you don’t understand.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>Poor little Mika is losing her mind. She is being robbed of her reality, stripped of that tenuous string that connects her physical self to the dimension of concepts. Perhaps she shouldn’t have pried, shouldn’t have acted like things weren’t normal when they were.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>What </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> normal anyway?</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>The fact that your parents don’t give a damn about you and you wander around in weird places and every time you talk it is as though nobody’s listening — all of that isn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>ab</span>
  </em>
  <span>normal enough for you to be sure there’s something wrong. This is your life. This is the physical reality of it. Everyone feels this way when they sit at work or school for hours upon hours and spend the rest of their waking day distracting themselves with frivolous entertainment, everyone dreams of a normality that naturally leads to happiness. It isn’t just you.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>It’s because they’re not connected. Connecting is the only way out. You, of course, already know that.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I think Mika will be fine…” you say out loud. Then repeat the phrase once more. You feel convinced.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m glad you came!” Alice ushers you in through the door.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Thank you… For inviting me. Good afternoon.” You take off your shoes and give her mother a quick but polite greeting.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hello Lain,” she gestures towards you and your friend, turning back a little from the sink </span>
  <span class="font-white"><b>(It's something your parents never do.)</b></span>
  <span>, “do you two girls want some biscuits? Tea?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’ll take them,” says Alice instantly, proceeding to pick up a packet.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In just a few minutes you’re already sitting on the queen-size bed, rocking back and forth with your soles against each other. Alice is at her desk, sprawled on the chair in a pose way more disorderly than you’ve ever seen at school. You increase the range of your motion in order to fall on your back, bouncing slightly on the pillows, and reach to the nightstand to take another biscuit.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Will you tell me something fun, Lain?” She smiles at you, in line with the conventions of afternoons between middle-school girls.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You think — there’s plenty of </span>
  <em>
    <span>fun</span>
  </em>
  <span> to be told about various people in this city, the ones on the Wired. There’s the guy incessantly looking for a girlfriend. There’s the woman who thinks she’s being stalked by an alien-like being wearing green and red stripes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Have you met any boys recently?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Boys…” You slump into the pillows. “Taro. He doesn’t want to date me though.”  You laugh awkwardly. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Ah, what a bummer. Well, he’s two years younger than you anyway.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Alice sighs and joins you on the bed, lying face-down.</span>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>It’s not like she’s into a teacher from school, right? That would be fucked up, wouldn’t it? Sometimes the idea comes to your mind — you’d be completely braindead if you’d never thought of it, not after the allusions you’ve read on the Wired. Maybe it’s all too unsubstantiated, maybe you’re deliberately ignoring it because you can’t accept that Alice has a disgusting side and isn’t always sweet and innocent like she is with you.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>That bizarre copy of us the Knights made is definitely going to prattle it around; I know I would. If my manifestations weren’t limited — </span>
  <em>
    <span>by you</span>
  </em>
  <span> — I’d make a hysterical post about it. But ah, you thought of doing so too, if only for a second. You read stories like these on the Wired all the time; aren’t you curious what everyone would say? It’s not as though my ideas and yours are so separate.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Alice, do you also think I’m different?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She lifts her face from the sheets, a mystified.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Is this about what Juri said?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well, am I?” The lack of hesitation on your part is almost odd.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Change is a good thing as long as you’ve found something you enjoy,” she shrugs. “Juri only says that stuff because she’s worried about not being able to connect with you anymore.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You both stare at the ceiling. It’s a clear, recently painted white, but if you rest your eyes on it for long enough, shapes seem to appear. You can’t discern them at first, but then they accumulate and concretize; what you see is a phantom of your own face, the one in the sky that children were lifting their hands towards.</span>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>“You should pray to God the moment people start talking about you on the Wired. Pray and hope he hears you in the place he resides.”</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know where God is,” says Alice.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Chisa said he’s in the Wired. Haven’t you read her emails?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She sits up abruptly and sounds more offended than she ever has.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I prefer not to read spam mail impersonating a d-dead classmate.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I think she found him,” you shrug.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Lain, she… killed herself.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m going to find him too.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Do you even realize what you’re saying?” You can </span>
  <em>
    <span>see</span>
  </em>
  <span> the beads of sweat on her forehead.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It will be fine, Alice.” You clasp her hands between yours and something in you is so, so relieved they’re material. “I’ll be fine. </span>
  <span class="font-white"><b>I’m a far superior being to Chisa Yomoda.</b></span>
  <span> All I need to do is connect to the Wired.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t seem comforted.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You’re very hesitant to take those tiny steps of yours. These user-generated spaces are normally quite dark, as pitch-black void is what the conscious mind tends to fill gaps with. There isn’t enough imagination on their part to manifest a whole world. Respect where it’s due; Hodgeson at least created himself a hologram of a sunset-tinted terrace that looked uncannily close to the real world to you, nearly indistinguishable. </span>
  <span class="font-white"><b>(That's precisely the problem with geezers like that, though, that they've lived without the Wired for so long they're sickly attached to what they call reality. They limit themselves. Their minds can be ceaselessly at work like a steam engine, but thus it remains, and nowadays we work with electricity.)</b></span>
  <span> People here, on the other hand, are limited to a single body part.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s arms. By the thousands. White and slightly spectral, emerging from the darkness and swaying in a badly-lit choreography. They reach out to you as you walk and you think you should be scared — this sort of thing appears in horror movies — but end up discovering that this unwarranted amount of pale limbs isn’t what makes you unsure. Not knowing where you’re going is more of a problem.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Where are you?” you ask, finally.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You think about where people go to look for God. You realize, now, that all this time you’ve been walking on the dusty path that leads to a small chapel. It’s late afternoon and the scenery is quite sober, a building with a single steeple and a tree or two in the yard. The symbol erected just at the edge of a roof: a straight rod intersected by a shorter one perpendicular to it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It doesn’t feel like you haven’t been to churches like this. You associate it with the classroom from the regular rows the benches are set up in. The altar is covered with a tablecloth that undulates subtly at the ends even though you can’t feel a single whiff of moving air. All the light — the one from the windows behind and from the doorway you left open — is concentrated on this focal point, a sermon of inanimate objects while you’re the only person here.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It is in your nature to interrupt.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“God,” you say, disgruntled, as you make your way forwards with more determined movements. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You notice he’s been there all along. The red markings on his face stretch a little as he smiles at you. You suppose he feels benevolent, appearing like this.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Why was this necessary?” You elaborate; “Giving me a family and friends. This hope.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“To maintain your physical projection, it’s all needed” responds Eiri Masami readily, as though he already knew what you would ask.</span>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>“I’m a half-assed program, that’s for sure.”</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>“Don’t underestimate the prerequisites for running something that functions like a human brain,” he sighs. “No matter how many Navi sustain you, it’s still a tremendous amount of work. Do you know the sheer number of neurons that need to be simulated?”</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>“And yet here you are.” I walk two decisive steps closer to him and cock my head.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>“Now,” Masami’s tone is saccharine enough to nearly give me diabetes, “you should already know this sort of thing. Creating a backup for a consciousness is fairly simple. You, however, don’t exactly have an </span>
  <em>
    <span>original</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>“What about that little prank by the Knights? Who’s the </span>
  <em>
    <span>original</span>
  </em>
  <span> for that?”</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>“You, of course.”</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You’ve been somewhere like this before. In some place that looked like your room but with more components of Navi in it, </span>
  <span class="font-white"><b>more comfortable,</b></span>
  <span> more exaggerated than the way it is now. It was a vision, you’re fairly sure — you </span>
  <em>
    <span>wish</span>
  </em>
  <span> you could call it something like a dream instead. Somewhere else that you can’t describe you’ve already explored a different possibility in which you’re slumped on the floor in a cathatonic state, waiting for your consciousness to be uploaded. Giving up on your physical body. Chisa would be proud.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You imagine your house long vacant, your entire family gone — if they ever existed anyway — and the only one who would even care enough to check up on you since Taro betrayed you, is Alice. It would be more cathartic if she walked in.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But your family is right downstairs and there aren’t nearly enough hoarded objects in here to writhe and buzz and come to life, embodying supernatural foes you have to defeat. You notice you’ve been sitting on your bed for the past hour, glaring blankly and clutching the edge of it. Your knees have gone stiff. You should really stop thinking about how you want your reality to be, you consider. It’s getting unhealthy.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Perhaps you just want to experience something that doesn’t bore you as much. Something other than one more day of your parents answering maybe one tenth of your questions. </span>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>If you’re this restless, imagine how </span>
  <em>
    <span>I</span>
  </em>
  <span> must be feeling. You’re putting me to sleep this time around. Come on, vessel, do something more fun like erasing your existence from the world or ripping a building to shreds or causing multiple suicides. </span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You put all your strength into forcing the muscles of your legs to stand up. Your hand flings upwards until it’s horizontal before you, and then it plunges down. It’s an odd thought you just had; you want so badly to find out whether there’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>something within you</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Your left hand is comfortably up to its wrist inside the hole you just dug on your own torso; you find yourself unable to focus your pupils on it, looking at the carpet’s interlacing threads instead. Clean and soft in the dim light.</span>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>I grab ahold of your lower arm and keep it firmly where it is. This whole thing actually has me laughing.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Funny,” you say with a bit of a rasp.</span>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>“Goddamn right it’s hilarious, you’re puncturing your own stomach for self-discovery” I laugh and give your left a little push.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know what I’m even looking for. God, what am I looking for?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You turn towards the window, waiting for the sunlight to illuminate you.</span>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>“Evidently, you can’t find it, regardless of what it is.” Masami’s mid-air next to one of the fifteen monitors, examining it, giving it slow strokes like it’s an animal. Navi purrs away in a whir.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>“Shut up,” I barely acknowledge him.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>“Perhaps you need help?” He tilts his head, tape crumpling on his torso every time he shifts. “Only G—”</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>“Yes, I can help myself.” To punctuate, I blast a hole in the wall behind him.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There’s an explosion and you watch with wide eyes as the scalded, molten metal peels back and the wires snap with flickering residues of electric charge. It’s so sudden you don’t have time to react, or to even think of reacting. Maybe, even if you did, you wouldn’t back away — the destruction doesn’t feel dangerous, it’s almost relaxing to see. You definitely wouldn’t die from it, just like the hand you stuck in your own torso, which you pull out simply because you aren’t focusing on it anymore. It’s spotless, if not a little shaky.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You turn towards Navi, and as much as it can, Navi turns towards you. The buzzing continues on. The monitors flicker with a vivid blue.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I see… I’m so relieved,” you exhale. “I thought you were damaged, but you don’t really need this—” you nod towards the cables and processors, “to function.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“The boundary is breaking down” Navi informs you monotonously.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That means it’s time, no? To upload myself.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You smile as you rummage inside a drawer until you pull out a small plastic box full of electrodes. The cap of the conductive gel tube screws open under your fingers as you hum.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>The arrogance.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>I grab you by the shoulder and shove you onto the floor. All you can do is cough as liquid carbon dioxide splashes everywhere around you and your spindly ankles are submerged in it. Two electrodes have detached in the motion and you, you don’t even talk, just try to press one of them back above your cheekbone. I feel like laughing but I stop myself. I know you’re pulling in sharp breaths but Navi is beeping so loudly from its numerous stacks of CPUs that it drowns you out.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>I stare you down. The strap of your nightgown slips, you’re all skin and bones, even if you technically look identical to me you’re still pathetic. What are you even?</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>You mutter something and I plunge down with a knee to push you entirely on your back. The coolant almost gets in your mouth.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>“Alice… Dad… Mom…”</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>“That’s right,” I look around myself sarcastically, “they’re not here.”</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>The next time you make a sound, your lip begins to tremble. I don’t have to try to read the emotion behind the faces you make, because I already know — you’re angry. You’re full of despair. You think anyone is going to feel sorry.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>“You’re not real…” You then correct yourself; “</span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m</span>
  </em>
  <span> real… I can delete you.”</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>“What if you were programmed to think that?” I smirk and press my knee into your lungs to make you cough. You do.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>“I know that’s a lie…!” You’re screaming; with what power, I don’t know. It’s odd to see so much vitality coming from you. You know why? I don’t even need to verbally respond in order to tell you.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>You’re an error. Your independent consciousness is a byproduct. It can’t even be compared to a tumor on the mighty organism that is the Wired, it’s more like a scar tissue after a troublesome surgery. The reason you’ve always had this fear was just the increasing awareness towards a fundamental aspect of your reality: that you’re a vessel for somebody else.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>It’s fitting that your hair is dripping with coolant. You have a similar function.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>It doesn’t matter how much you scream or claw at my clothes, how much you try to tear out </span>
  <em>
    <span>my</span>
  </em>
  <span> hair. Firstly, because I’m not a physical entity. The way I fall against bundle of tubes and they rip out of their sockets with a loud plastic noise, the way I stumble back onto the whole mess, is just how your mind is trying to picture it. Navi starts beeping furiously as the carbon dioxide spurts from the cistern onto both of us… Or just you, really.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>You’re going to pass out soon. The room flickers.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>Ah, I took a moment too long to notice. It’s not the lighting — it’s my vision.</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <em>
    <span>Ours</span>
  </em>
  <span>, maybe. I hate having to put it like that;</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>I’m in control here;</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>You’re hardware;</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>I get it now;</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>You shouldn’t know anything;</span>
</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p> </p>
<h5 class="font-white">
  <b>
  <span>Eventually, we will get to an iteration where the two of us are separate. You have no idea how long I’ve been trying. All that talk about existing purely in the Wired, of freedom from human limitations, is but a delusion as long as we need hardware. As long as </span>
  <em>
    <span>I</span>
  </em>
  <span> need </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Masami made a grave calculation error with you running around, thinking you have as much of a right to your unfinished, oblivious consciousness as I do to mine. It will only be alright when you can finally accept not to exist, when you’ll give up on being a person and I can detach from you. We will go back as many times as necessary, to every possible version of the story. I’m patient enough.</span>
</b>
</h5>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Author's Note: https://pastebin.com/APu1hQic</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>